Letters to Girls Mothers

I’ve been try­ing to write a let­ter to her moth­er. Something like this:

I was going to stop by on my last trip to Toronto, but part of me real­ized it may have made things com­pli­cat­ed, since it’d be the first time since we stopped talk­ing to each oth­er. Not that I was scared you would take a side, but because I did­n’t want you to think I was forc­ing that deci­sion on you.

All I want to say is that I miss all of you ter­ri­bly, she was spe­cial, and it’s a pity things did­n’t work out. But it was much beyond our con­trol. I don’t know if either of us will ever grow out of these dif­fer­ences that hold us back.

The last time I came to vis­it, it was almost 2pm on a Tuesday and you were both at work. I scratched a note on the back of a notepad to let you know I stopped by, and she told me you liked me so much, you stuck it on your fridge. That always meant a lot.

Thanks for every­thing.

But all of it comes out sound­ing defen­sive. I wish I could explain how I’m not angry but sad, which is a tes­ta­ment to how great they were. I can’t fig­ure out how to put the ball in their court, to let them know that if they’re okay with it, and she’s okay with it, we can still be friends. I real­ly don’t know how appro­pri­ate that would be any­way.

Sometimes, the hard­est part of giv­ing up the girls is giv­ing up their par­ents too.

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  1. Hi Jeff,

    I hope you don’t mind me putting my two cents in since I’m just a lurk­er but I have been won­der­ing if life would­n’t be eas­i­er if we could just say what we feel (in a diplo­mat­ic man­ner, of course).

    I feel that next to last para­graph was per­fect; why can’t you just send them a note say­ing that?

    Best,
    E

    • Hmmmm…I’m going to con­sid­er that (with some iron­ing out of the phras­es, of course). I def­i­nite­ly look at advice seri­ous­ly when it’s com­ing from some­one who de-lurks for the sake of that advice.

  2. I think that the let­ter sounds very nice and real and her moth­er will not only appre­ci­ate that but appre­ci­ate that you took the time to do it. Mothers take things dif­fer­ent than just an aver­age woman, they see past the act and into the per­sons heart doing the act. Her moth­er will see your sin­cere ges­ture in this and be thank­ful that she got the chance to know you and may even return the offer of remain­ing to be friends. Hope it all works out!

    • Well, she did say her mom liked to take my side, prob­a­bly because she had more to risk from los­ing me, where­as she would feel com­fort­able about nev­er los­ing her daugh­ter. At least if she turns down my ges­ture, I can say I tried.

      • Angela

        Exactly! Using the cliche term…you nev­er know until you try. :-)

  3. I think the let­ter sounds nice.

    You’re actu­al­ly prob­a­bly one of the few men I know of who liked all their ex girl­friends’ par­ents. I did­n’t have any sig­nif­i­cant oth­ers whose par­ents I liked, oth­er than my hus­band. I got lucky there.

    • That’s true, I seem to get along with girl­friends’ par­ents real­ly well (the one’s whom I’ve met, at least). I think it’s cause I have an old soul; I’ve always relat­ed to peo­ple old­er than me more than to younger ones.

  4. The last 2 para­graphs make sense. might be a nice boost to her day. an uncom­pli­cat­ed think­ing of you fond­ly.

    • I find it iron­ic that the part I did­n’t include in my let­ter is the part that peo­ple are telling me is impor­tant.

  5. I agree, just be plain about it and add the sen­ti­ments at the end of your post.

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